Callie Crossley '73 Honored by Free Speech Organization

On November 14, Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presented Callie Crossley with the 2012George W. Coleman Award for her exceptional decade-long service as a member of the Board of Directors.

According to the organization's press release, "Crossley has enriched and deepened the Forum’s programs. She has carried on the mission of the Forum by using her considerable skills to ensure that the Forum presents intelligent programs of depth and distinction. Crossley has lent her journalistic expertise and talents in moderating discussions with such luminaries as: NPR’s Cokie Roberts '64, Nina Totenberg, and Linda Wertheimer '65; PBS's Gwen Ifill; and Congressman Barney Frank."

Callie Crossley is an award-winning reporter, commentator, and radio talk host. She was nominated for an Oscar for her work on Eyes On the Prize, the landmark TV documentary series about the history of the American Civil Rights movement.

The Ford Hall Forum is a nonprofit organization founded in February 1908 by George W. Coleman, a Boston businessman and then leader of the Boston Baptist Social Union. The first public lectures were held in the Union's meeting place, the Ford Building on Beacon Hill, from where the Forum's name originates. The Forum was established as a free speech institution that does not endorse the view of any of its speakers, occasionally giving the stage to speakers whom other institutions would, or could, not. Ousted by the Boston Baptist Social Union for fear of being associated with radicalism, the Ford Hall Forum began its own separate enterprise in 1929. It remains the nation’s oldest continuously operating free public lecture series. Its mission is to foster an informed and effective citizenry and to promote freedom of speech.